Ultralearning
Master Hard Skills, Outsmart the Competition, and Accelerate Your Career
by Scott Young · first published 2019
57% recommend39% neutral4% critical
Why HN recommends it
Offers a practical framework for learning hard skills quickly, with tips for self-study and projects. Its approach is actionable and inspiring for job changers and self-learners.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Multi-talented author, programmer and entrepreneur Scott Young has learnt four new languages and taught himself the entire four-year MIT curriculum for computer science all within a year. How? By using these seven life-changing ultralearning techniques designed for people, like him, who want to stand apart. Learning has never been easy, perhaps, because it has never been made easy. Scott Young has observed the passive learning subculture, redesigning it for those who want to accomplish more with his seven principles behind every successful ultralearning project. Whether the goal is to be fl
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Check these books: - Ultralearning by Scott Young - Deep Work by Cal Newport - Atomic Habits by James Clear - How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler - Mindfulness Meditation (many books by Jon Kabat-Zinn „Ultralearning“ has lots of…
on “Ask HN: How do you manage self-study?” ↗I’m in the middle of listening to Scott Young’s book Ultralearning, and honestly this article captures the most important idea. 90% of becoming an “ultra learner” is having the courage to tackle the real thing immediately; the rest is just tactics.
on “Do the Real Thing” ↗highly recommend the book "Ultralearning" by Scott Young to everyone, especially people looking for a new job/to change jobs (yes, I realize if one is looking for a job theoretically one "shouldn't" have time for "extra" reading). Truly an…
on “Panic at the Job Market” ↗the book "Ultraltralearning" by Scott Young was/is a useful resource for people who want to "open their minds" to different perspectives on finding work, imo: https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/ultralearning/ https://www.reddit.com/r/productivity/comments/r81s4t/ https://www.betterworldbooks.com/product/detail/ultralearnin... https://www.amazon.com/Ultralearning-Master-Outsmart-Competi... https://www.amazon.com/Ultralearning-Scott-Young-audiobook/d...
on “Work after work: Notes from an unemployed new grad watching the job market break” ↗…to learn, it's good to learn how to learn. You have the free "Learning how to learn" course on coursera : https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn And I'm currently reading a book called "Ultralearning" by a guy called Scott H Young who I imagine is the type of person to be on hacker news and be like "Hey, thanks for recommending my book!" https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/ultralearning/ The book so…
on “Ask HN: What Skills to Acquire in 2020?” ↗The 2nd point really resonates with me. I was reading this book called “Ultralearning” and feedback was one of the biggest points mentioned there. People who get prompt feedback can immediately use it to learn from experience. People who don’t have to keep guessing of what they’re doing…
on “Online courses vs. colleges for software engineering” ↗…need to find a text version. That said, I have found some great audiobooks that I have learnt from: -The Goal -Pragmatic Programmer -Designing Data-Intensive Applications -Thinking Fast and Slow -Ultralearning The best entertainment so far have been -Dune -The Expanse series -The Bobiverse series -The Expeditionary force series. I asked this question so broadly as I wanted to try something that I wouldn't…
on “Ask HN: Audio Book Recommendations” ↗My learning strategy has a few parts: (1) Projects as the top-level structure. [Lookup: Ultralearning - a book/website (get the book). It covers designing learning projects.] This is the backbone of how to learn anything technical - you have to build using it. (2) An Injest Feed - When you read something,…
on “Ask HN: What is your learning strategy?” ↗…it would have more practical advice vs. just defining categories of learning (i.e. incremental, transformational) and talking about the need for learning. On this topic, a great read is Scott Young's "Ultralearning" https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/ultralearning/. Well-researched, practical and the author has been successful following his own advice. Highly recommend.
on “Learning at work is work, and we must make space for it” ↗…comfortable you are with math in general, you could probably skip it and look things up as needed. Another person to look into is Scott Young who taught himself the MIT CS curriculum in a year. His book Ultralearning is excellent and contains many tips that would help with self-studying CS. Unless you just want to dive into the content, Ultralearning would actually be my first recommendation before learning CS fundamentals.
on “Ask HN: How do I choose the right resource to learn CS fundamentals?” ↗…getting way too many resources right now can be extremely confusing, so I would recommend doing a follow-up post after you worked through the above resources. Also as non-ML stuff I recommend Scott Young's Ultralearning and Azeria's self improvement posts (https://azeria-labs.com/the-importance-of-deep-work-the-30-h...)
on “Ask HN: Full-on machine learning for 2020, what are the best resources?” ↗I recommend the book "Ultralearning"^1 for its well-researched insights. 1. https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B07K6MF8MD/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t...
on “Ask HN: How do you manage self-study?” ↗Hi @rendall, in exploring this subject more broadly you may find it useful to search for "metacognition". See also the book "Ultralearning", https://RoamBrain.com, Tiago Forte, NessLabs...
on “Stop Taking Regular Notes; Use a Zettelkasten Instead” ↗Checkout the Ultralearning book by Scott Young. I think this idea of having a project or being immersed in a situation really helps you learn a skill faster.
on “Ask HN: How much time per day is needed to onboard a new skill?” ↗Specifically for the GRE the books I used was Manhattan series both the course and the 5 lb. book of problems. For learning in general the ones that have helped me the most are Ultralearning as mentioned, Tim Ferris' series of books, Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin. I also rate Atomic Habits by James Clear and The War of Art by Steven Pressfield to create the underlying habits that are needed…
on “I got 92nd and 95th percentile on the GRE with 87 hours of study” ↗